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Thursday, June 27, 2013

A lot has happened this week that has not been fun for a
conservative.

On Monday the Senate passed the Corker Hoeven amendment and
managed to get cloture on the “immigration” amnesty bill.

It amazes me that the same republicans who have complained
loudly in the budget debate that we can’t have tax increases with the promise
of spending cuts later are willing to allow legislation with the promise of
future securing of the border.

I’m particularly disappointed with Senator Rubio &
Senator Ayotte.Both had been supported
by Sarah Palin andTea Party groups and
both had promised not to be supportive of amnesty.

Palin said
Rubio had promised that "border security would come first," and he
would not support "legalization of illegal
immigrants" and "amnesty" before border security while running
in the Florida Republican Senate primary against Charlie Crist in 2010. She
said Ayotte, whom she endorsed, had on her campaign website in 2010 that there
were "no excuses" not to secure the border and also said she would
not support amnesty.

"I
think that they should be challenged. I don't have a problem with heated
debates and contested primaries where they have to answer to constituents
regarding their flip-flopping on such a fundamental position as amnesty for
illegal immigrants," she told Gibson. "I don't have a problem at all
with contested primaries. In fact, competition makes us all better and makes us
be held accountable and I'd like to see them held accountable and answer as to
why it is that they flip-flopped."

On Rubio there are two possibilities that come to my
mind.Rubio might have been played, he’s
fairly young and occasionally such people are played.If he just came out and said so people would
let it go.

As for Senator Ayotte I suspect part of this flip is out of
deference to her allies McCain and Graham who she has worked closely with on
Benghazi (and done yeoman work) but I suspect part of it is because she was
trying to get the left off of her back over the Toomey Manchin.

Nashua
Mayor DonnaleeLozeau said she resigned from "Mayors Against Illegal
Guns" on May 10, shortly after joining the nationwide coalition, because
it went beyond its stated principles of "keeping illegal guns out of
dangerous hands."

Lozeau said she did not know when she joined the group that it would
"unfairly attack" fellow Nashuan Sen. Kelly Ayotte in a $2 million
barrage of ads after Ayotte opposed an amendment calling for universal
background checks for gun purchases in April.

Speaker John A. Boehner reiterated to House Republicans this morning
that he will not bring up the Senate’s immigration overhaul for a vote in the
House. “Weeks ago, I — along with Eric, Kevin, Cathy and Bob Goodlatte —
issued a statement making clear that the House is not going to just take up and
vote on whatever the Senate passes,” Boehner told lawmakers, per a source in
the room. "We’ll do our own bill, through regular order and it’ll be a
bill that reflects the will of our majority and the people we represent.”
...

As Sean Connery’s Character said in the League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen “Wait, always wait”

On Tuesday in Massachusetts Ed Markey running in a
special election with no other democrat on the ballot managed to only pull 60%
of the vote that one of the worst candidates in US Senate History Martha
Coakley.

Opposing him was Gabriel Gomez, Navy Seal, Navy Pilot,
successful businessman and a 1st Generation immigrant from
Columbia.With the GOP arguing loudly
that the immigration bill needed to pass to get Hispanics to be willing to vote
Democrats Gomez who won the primary with over 50% despite straying from the
bases position on Climate Change, Gun Control, was apparently a perfect fit
since he also endorsed the gang of eight bill even before the Corker
Hoeven was suggested.

And while Gomez won several towns back that Brown had lost
in 2012 the appeal among Hispanic voters was apparently overstated:

So on
election day they went to a city with many people from “Hispanica” and said:
“Look our candidate is a child of Hispanica just like you! Come vote for
him!” But the people of that city said: We’ve never heard of a country
called “Hispanica” Our parents come from a country called “The Dominican
Republic” and they voted for the party they always did.

Then they
went to another town and said “Look our candidate is from the land of Hispanica
just like you” and the people of that town said: “We’ve never heard of a land
called ‘Hispanica” our fathers came from a land called “Brazil” and they voted
for the party they always did.

Ok that’s not exactly
how it happened but the bottom line is he drew only 45% of the vote.

I’m sorry, Gabriel Gomez is a nice guy with a great
personal story but if supporting amnesty doesn’t do the trick with Spanish
speaking voters when you’re running a 1st generation Columbian with
the last name “Gomez” odds are you aren’t going to do better supporting this
kind of bill with the last name “Alexander” or Graham.

Then later in the evening after a long Filibuster in the Texas
was finally broken the mob managed to stall long enough to block a bill that
would have prevented the next Kermit Gosnell in Texas.Stopping the bill made the left absolutely
giddy.

Donna Brazille compared the fight to stop that abortion
bill to the civil rights era.She was
right in on respect, just like in the old days the people fighting hardest for
the right to kill black children were democrats.

Then came Wednesday and a pair of Supreme Court rulings,
first the a section of DOMA was overturned meaning the Federal government has
to treat gay married couples in state where it is legal in terms of
benefits.The most amazing thing about
the ruling was the impugning of the motives of all those who have opposed Gay
Marriage as Rush put it:

In 1996,
the Defense of Marriage Act passed the House of Representatives 342 to
67. It passed the Senate 85 to 14. What a bunch of bigots! The
Supreme Court majority today said that all of those 342 in the House and those
85 in the Senate passed the Defense of Marriage Act 'cause they hated gays.

And they
wanted to punish gays, and they wanted to demean gays, and they wanted to
impugn gays, and they wanted to impugn homosexuality. That's why 342
members of the House passed DOMA, and that's why 85 Senators voted for
it. Bill Clinton signed it into law, and today Bill Clinton and his
lovely and gracious wife, Hillary Rodham Rodham, issue a statement hailing the
decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act which he signed into
law.

Nobody was talking about this at all 20 years ago.Who knew the entire population of the country
since its founding was a bunch of evil bigots all that time?No wonder the self-righteous left hates them
so.

Worse than the first decision was the second that
effectively repealed California’s Prop 8 which was a ballot initiative
forbidding gay marriage in the California constitution.

The court rules the people appealing a lower court that cancelled
out the successful referendum did not have standing.The problem the folks who DID have standing
to appeal, the state had vehemently opposed the referendum (which is why the
people went that route) and absolutely refused to defend it in court:

Why go through
all that time and effort and expense when even if you win, all the party
machine needs is a single sympathetic lower court judge to rule in their and
violà you’re foiled without standing to appeal.

Fans of Gay
Marriage might be cheering today, but not as loud as fans of one party
autocratic government.

I have been
banned in Britain.My crime?My principled dedication to
freedom. I am a human rights activist dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom
of conscience and individual rights for all before the law. I fiercely oppose
violence and the persecution and oppression of minorities under supremacist
law. I deplore violence and work for the preservation of freedom of speech to
avoid violent conflict.

I have
never been convicted of any crime. I have never been arrested. I became a
writer and activist in the wake of 911.

For this I
am banned. I shed no tears. I am banned from Mecca, too.

When the current queen dies England will die.There will still be a place on the map called
“England” but the name will mean nothing.

And to top it all off the Bruins blew the Stanley Cup and
June has been the worst month for DaTipJar all year and my brother-in-law is
bad….Very Bad

Thursday, June 20, 2013

On Wednesday 10,000
Tea party members came to the Capital on short notice to protest the IRS
scandal. TEA generally stands for Taxed Enough Already but this time it stood
for Targeted Enough Already. It’s my opinion that this scandal is the only one
with legs due to the legalities involved, but as I watch the left continue to
circle the wagons for Barack Obama and the IRS I’m reminded of an old Star Trek
Episode the Enterprise
Incident.COMMANDER: But I doubt it'll clear you of espionage.KIRK: We were not spying, Commander.COMMANDER: Your language has always been most difficult
for me, Captain. Perhaps you have another word for it.KIRK: You're grossly mistaken if you think we were
there...COMMANDER: Captain, if a Romulan vessel ventured far
into Federation territory without good explanation, what would a starbase
commander do? You see, it works both ways.
Is there a single member of the left that would buy this administration's
explanations for the IRS scandal (or in fact any of the scandals) if they were
coming from the Bush administration?
I think not.
Incidentally for my non-geek readers, the reason why the Romulans were using
" Klingon Design" for their ship was because a production assistant
stepped on the Romulan model while unpacking them.
The Edward Snowden story becomes odder and odder, I haven’t decided if he’s
just a traitor trying to bring the country down or a fanatic who thinks it was
necessary to stop government overreach but Bob Schieffer made an excellent
point on the
subject:Some of the people I admire most took on the government -- men and women
who led the civil rights movement: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. They are
true heroes.I'm not ready to put Edward Snowden in that category.For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks
running off and hiding in China. The people who led the civil rights movement
were willing to break the law AND suffer the consequences. That's a little
different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away.
The case reminds me a bit of the Kate Hunt case there was a real rush to
turn him into a hero by some and I suspect they will regret it as more information
comes out.
I really dislike Glenn Greenwald as a rule. He was one of the “It’s
America’s fault just after 9/11” and frankly I wouldn’t doubt for one moment
that the injury to security of the country is to his liking but I’ll give him
this. He has been no hypocrite. He has been just as hard on the Obama
administration as he was on the Bushes.
None of the other scandals were able to get bring the president’s
numbers down with youth but this one has and my oldest believes he
knows the reason:while the youth might not care about the implications of silencing the
Tea Party or dead navy seals but they know that industry and they how much they
want stiff penalties for illegal downloads.My son told me he has friends who have been downloading movies and songs
for years who literally are afraid of using their computers since the NSA
scandal broke.
You want to get people excited hit them where they live and today youth live
online.
The tea party protest in Washington wasn’t the only protest that took place
recently. There was an Anti-gun protest in San Bernedino that I found interesting.
Exactly six months after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy
Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a small group from Organizing for
Action stood here Friday with 26 flags and signs calling for stricter gun
control.
What’s significant about this protest was that the San Bernadino Sun sent a
staff writer to cover this protest and devoted almost 200 words to the story of
a protest that drew only three people.
Mind you this same paper when the March for life took place and 500,000
showed up in Washington DC and over
50,000 showed up in San Francisco didn’t find it newsworthy enough for an
entry.
People wonder why the left is so afraid of the Koch brothers possibility
buying the LA Times. This is why.
Senator Ted Cruz is on a roll, first he goes after the Immigration bill
(nobody has yet explained why people unwilling to enforce immigration laws
before amnesty would be willing to do so afterward. He then came up with this
tweet concerning the white House arming Syrian Rebels:

Anyone know if President Obama intends to perform background checks on the Syrian rebels before providing them weapons?
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) June 18, 2013

The Word you're looking for is “Bazinga!”

Matt Smith’s upcoming departure as the Doctor has led me to begin reviewing
his episodes in order. The first three are herehere
and here.

This week is the best sports week of the year, you have Baseball, and you
have the Stanley Cup Finals and the NBA finals all at once. One might argue for
a different time but unless baseball is in the mix it doesn’t count.
So far the NBA finals and the NHL finals have really lived up to the hype.
Some of the best Hockey and Basketball of the year continues to be played right
now.
Some TV?Burn Notice is in
its final season, I’ve never understood of announcing at the star of a season
that a popular series is about to end, I can understand a actor wanting to move
on but considering how many actors never find another series I’d stick with
what works. Then again if a writer is bored and new writers are brought in, the
quality almost always suffers.
Speaking of TV did MeTv pick the perfect time to bring back Hogan’s Heroes
or what, consider this promo:
Doesn’t Sgt.Schultz sound like the president when being asked about various
scandals?
Finally had to kill the cat this week, we’ve had it for a dozen years and
got her at age 5. I was struck that the vet was still affected emotionally
given that they kill animals on a daily basis.
You might notice that I use “kill” rather than “put down” or “put to sleep”
because that is what was done. My wife is very angry at me for using those
words instead of euphemisms.
I’m reminded of a scene from the Movie: The fighting Kentuckian.
Breen (John Wayne) has been captured by the bad guys who are preparing to kill
him.Hayden: Good night Mr BreenBreen: You mean I can goHayden: AnytimeBreen: What makes you think I will?Hayden: Because that way you’ve got a chance, a small one
but a chanceBreen: Well, never let it be said I didn’t take it.
As a Catholic the #1 imperative for a human is salvation but as a cat like
all animals has no soul the #1 imperative is survival. Given that the cat had a
0% of survival going to the vet to be drugged to death I can’t see how that’s
kinder that giving her fighting chance to live another day, week or month.
But that’s me.
Later all.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Edward Snowden is the big news of the week. I have some advice for all
concerned, consider the basic facts in evidence that are not
in dispute:Edward Snowden violated federal law and his oath.Edward Snowden leaked a highly classified security programEdward Snowden fled to a Communist Country our single biggest
rival/enemy
No matter what you think of the NSA Prism programs, Mr. Snowden's
motivations or even the necessity of the exposure of this scandal, these facts
are not in dispute and I suggest people be very careful before declaring him Horatius
at the Bridge.
Meanwhile is other longstanding scandal news...
More and more calls have been coming for Eric Holder’s resignation, it’s
been suggested that Obama is keeping his as a lightning rod but this is a
foolish move.
The professional media left (read the MSM) is indifferent to the
IRS, scandal and Benghazi as much as they were about Fast and Furious but the
AP/Fox story hits them where they live. As long as Holder is there the
Obama scandals will get coverage, but once Holder is gone the media will
portray this as the president taking action and move along.
I’m really surprised the White House hasn’t figured that out yet.
For a while the defenders of the administration have been running around in
circles coming up with every possible explanation as to why each and every scandal
is no big deal. Via Mark Steyn at NRO we see Senator Mark Kirk has managed
to get down to the nitty gritty.Here’s another congressional-subcommittee transcript highlight of the
week. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois asks the attorney general if he’s spying on
members of Congress and thereby giving the executive branch leverage over the
legislative branch. Eric Holder answers:“With all due respect, senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate
setting for me to discuss that issue.”Senator Kirk responded that “the correct answer would be, ‘No, we stayed
within our lane and I’m assuring you we did not spy on members of Congress.’”
For some reason, the attorney general felt unable to say that. So I think we
all know what the answer to the original question really is.
That’s what it comes down to, if the administration could answer these
questions in an honest and straightforward way they would.
That they can’t continues to speak volumes, the question becomes are
American’s listening.

I’ve been amazed at the reliable playing of the Race card by defenders of
the president as well, a card that many people believed would be the Obama
administration would be the end of this kind of thing. (I’m even more
amazed that people actually believed this would be the case)
Politically it’s not foolish, this card continues to resonate with the black
community who has been made to believe that the only reason the right opposes
Obama is because of his skin color.
No matter where the evidence leads this community is not going to believe
there is cause to blame this president. I suspect if we had Obama on film
wearing a White Hood and burning a cross the black community would stand behind
him.

***************************
Speaking of the Race card we are seeing it being played AGAINST Gabriel
Gomez by a
Spanish language newspaper in Boston. They suggest that Gomez is
Latino in Name only.
Think about that, what about Gabriel Gomez is insufficiently Hispanic, his
command of English, his success as a Navy pilot, as a Navy Seal, his success in
business.
Perhaps if he was on EBT he would be acceptable?
If that article and that argument had been made by a conservative
publication that media organ would have been accused of racism,...and they’d be
right.

I’m also convinced that my friend Michael Graham is dead wrong concerning
this election, he is planning on staying home as are a lot of his
listeners rather than vote for Gabriel Gomez.
Gabriel Gomez is not running against Michael Sullivan anymore, he’s not
running against Ted Cruz or Sarah Palin, he’s running against Ed Markey.
If conservatives willing to stay home and allow Ed Markey to be elected then
we deserve what we get, just like the millions of conservatives that stayed
home are to blame for Barack Obama.
How’s that working out for ya?

Unemployment is up to 7.6%. The
left is blaming Sequester for this and the poor economy.
For four years George Bush was to blame for the Obama Economy and now
Sequester is being blamed in year five.
Barack Obama is the ultimate affirmative action hire, he will never be held
responsible for anything as long as he is in the white house.

The Santa Monica shooting is going to lead to another attempt to grab guns.
Yeah after the IRS scandal and the NSA and PRISM people are really going to
be anxious to be disarmed by their government.

The
upcoming gas tax increase in Massachusetts along with it being indexed to
inflation gives yet another reason for the business minded to flee the
state. I’m surprised Rick Perry hasn’t sent a thank you card to Deval
Patrick. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.

I’m still upset at Matt Smith leaving as the Doctor after 3 seasons (and
four years). When it comes down to it I think he needed at least one more
year, but in fairness this is about average for people who have held the role.
Actors seems to be afraid to take the role for being typecast and identified
as the Doctor. I think that’s foolish. Being the Doctor means you
bring a ready made audience with you to whatever future role you have.
If you are trying to make a living in the entertainment business that is a
GOOD thing..
I’d like to see an actor willing to take the role for at least 5 years the
next time around. I think an older established actor would be more
willing to do so.

A lot of conservatives are crowing over Fox’s
RedEye at 3 AM outdrawing Morning Joe at 6-9 in key demographics .
The problem is Morning Joe isn’t competing with Fox, they’re not interesting
in beating them. They’re playing to be the show of choice along the
coasts from DC to Boston and from SF to LA.
Anyone who pretends otherwise is deluding themselves.
Finally i’m still amazed at the number of posts Instapundit gets up in one
day. What’s more amazing is he’s pretty much done this every single day
for a decade.
If or shall I say when this ends it will be interesting to see who replaces
him, if anyone. He has a lot of blogchildren but none have risen to his
level.
What will we do when he's gone?
See you next week